3 ms·

Yes and No. Both countries are currently in desperate need of sizeable public works programs to keep people usefully occupied. Cost is proxy for human activity

by neffy 10y ago

Yes and No. Both countries are currently in desperate need of sizeable public works programs to keep people usefully occupied. Cost is proxy for human activity, but not necessarily a useful one. If we really are looking at massive near term automation, this is exactly the kind of proposal we can expect to see get off the ground...

T-A 10y ago
I'm pretty sure there is minimal overlap between the set of people you'd want to hire for a lunar base program and the set of people in need of public works programs.
- vkou 10y ago
  Really? Because there seems to be no shortage of unemployed young, educated people in Europe.
  - T-A 10y ago
    What would you have them do? Crew? No, you want middle-aged types, preferably past reproductive age, for that. Obvious reasons familiar from decades of discussions about astronaut selection include radiation exposure, elevated risk of casualties and psychology. Design? No, nobody sane would let inexperienced hands design hardware for human space flight and settlement. Hardware production? Maybe some of that. A few hundred people, maybe even a few thousand, mostly watching over the CNC machines doing the actual work?
    - vkou 10y ago
      I feel that you are vastly underestimating the amount of, and variety of work required in this kind of endeavour. Apollo annually took ~1% of the GDP of the United States to get off the ground. And most of the people who worked on it were not astronauts or rocket surgeons.
eru 10y ago
> Both countries are currently in desperate need of sizeable public works programs to keep people usefully occupied. Not really. The ECB will offset any inflation extra government spending might create. That's what inflation targeting does. And on the lower side, the ECB will cut rates and do QE if total spending and thus inflation fall short of their target.

3 ms·

Yes and No. Both countries are currently in desperate need of sizeable public works programs to keep people usefully occupied. Cost is proxy for human activity

by neffy 10y ago

T-A 10y ago
I'm pretty sure there is minimal overlap between the set of people you'd want to hire for a lunar base program and the set of people in need of public works programs.
- vkou 10y ago
  Really? Because there seems to be no shortage of unemployed young, educated people in Europe.
  - T-A 10y ago
    What would you have them do? Crew? No, you want middle-aged types, preferably past reproductive age, for that. Obvious reasons familiar from decades of discussions about astronaut selection include radiation exposure, elevated risk of casualties and psychology. Design? No, nobody sane would let inexperienced hands design hardware for human space flight and settlement. Hardware production? Maybe some of that. A few hundred people, maybe even a few thousand, mostly watching over the CNC machines doing the actual work?
    - vkou 10y ago
      I feel that you are vastly underestimating the amount of, and variety of work required in this kind of endeavour. Apollo annually took ~1% of the GDP of the United States to get off the ground. And most of the people who worked on it were not astronauts or rocket surgeons.
eru 10y ago
> Both countries are currently in desperate need of sizeable public works programs to keep people usefully occupied. Not really. The ECB will offset any inflation extra government spending might create. That's what inflation targeting does. And on the lower side, the ECB will cut rates and do QE if total spending and thus inflation fall short of their target.